I discovered early in my walk with the Lord what He called me to, well us.. Christians…

This does not mean that I always did it, or suddenly became perfect as I grew, but I always understood. In the words of every Disney kid’s favorite bunny, “If you can’t say nothing nice, don’t say nothing at all.”

and that’s all fine, because Jesus said so.. I guess the problem is if you can’t say it, what do you do with it?

“I said, “I will guard my ways, that I may not sin with my tongue; I will guard my mouth with a muzzle, so long as the wicked are in my presence. I was mute and silent; I held my peace to no avail, and my distress grew worse. My heart became hot within me. As I mused, the fire burned; then I spoke with my tongue, “oh lord make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am” Psalm 39: 1-4

Basically David is saying I’ve got to be careful to keep my mouth shut, may even have to tie it up some days when I am around certain people… but when I do.. and God I did… I was quiet and kept calm no matter what… I promise God, I just felt worse after that. You live in my heart, I know you felt how mad it was, the longer I sat the worse it got, Lord. Help me to know that life is short, my days are numbered, and this is all temporary.

I stored it all, too.

You can call it a bucket full of ‘things I’m glad I didn’t say out loud’ but really all it becomes is a pot of unspilled ingredients to grow an uneasy heart and bitterness. That’s what I call it anyway; David just called it a hot heart.

But what do we do with it? What does it mean when you spare words that would hurt someone else but end up hurting you? Surely that’s not what God meant, huh?

You learn.

I learned.

You learn that loving Jesus isn’t always easy and living like him never is.  Do I think God’s intention is for us to squeeze bad things so they don’t hurt others at our expense? Of course not, but I do think that until we can learn to hold a thorn with an open palm we’re going to hurt.

That’s the lesson here: Don’t say it but don’t store it either. Keep what is painful out of the path of your enemy but let it go too.

We claim we want a life a freedom, but we clench our fists around everything Satan hands us, even without realizing it. You only think you’ve won when he gives you a nasty thought that you keep to yourself. I’ve felt that victory more than I care to publicly profess here tonight, but I’ve also felt the pain of all of those unsaid things months later when they accumulate to max capacity. It’s why we come to be pushed across that thin line of ‘I can’t take no more, God’ over something crazy like someone taking the last snack, but left the empty box. Now while I agree that is borderline emergent when you need a bedtime snack, should it really put you in the floor in tears? Has it before?

Don’t you see how sneaky that is? Satan smiles at things like that because even though he isn’t celebrating a big victory that day, he is able to walk away satisfied because he knows one is coming. He doesn’t mind waiting on it.

We want to control everything, certainly the way we react and respond, but why we feel the need to hold on to all that stuff is beyond me. I can laugh about it now, but I had this one thing that I had just harbored for an embarrassing amount of time and literally almost an entire year passed and it just fell out of my mouth so fast. I had even forgotten it was in there, but in the right moment, under the right amount of pressure it made its way out of the metaphorical bucket.

I tell you that only because I want to tell you this.

It’s a lie.

That thing that Satan is poking you to say, it’s wrong now, and it will still be wrong six months down the road when you still have it in your heart… and here’s why: Go grab a pen and a piece of paper; write this down; sticky it to your Bible, your bathroom mirror and your heart because it is the single most best statement and problem solver that you could ever need:

God handles everything.

I don’t know how something so simple can be so hard sometimes but it is. He’s handled it, He’s handling it, He will handle it. I promise.

Trusting God hurts. Losing control hurts… but you know what?

Trusting in yourself? hurts… and trying to be in control of yourself? that hurts too.

Realizing I could hurt in the presence of God, or just hurt alone was a complete game changer for me. I hope it makes your choice easier too.

 

So much love,